Video: '1987 Nike Revolution'

(Friday, March 27, 1987) — In America, the footwear manufacturers Nike began using The Beatles’ 1968 recording of “Revolution” today in a highly publicized television advertising campaign.

While Nike claimed it marked the “first time in advertising history that an original Beatles group recording has been licensed for use in a television campaign,” The Beatles’ company Apple Records Inc. would file a $15 million lawsuit against Nike on July 28, 1987, for having “wrongfully traded on the good will and popularity of the Beatles.”

Nike stopped running the ads early in 1988, and the case settled out-of-court the next year on terms that have been kept secret since.